


just be daring, give me a sign

by Macremae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Foiled Confessions, Humor, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23304964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: As the end of the world becomes more and more of a certainty, Newt decides that now is the best time to confess his feelings to Hermann. And he's going to do it. Really. He is. At least, hewould, if the universe would stop cutting him off.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 8
Kudos: 100





	just be daring, give me a sign

**Author's Note:**

> happy quarantine i finished over 5000 words in 3 days. king lear WHOMST. @shakesexual on twt and @bae-science on tumblr!

The goal of this exercise was, essentially, not to screw everything up.

The rain, cold and slushy like January storms in Hong Kong always are, pounded on Newt’s umbrella and slid off it onto the ground below, splashing his boots. He tilted it backwards a little further, trying to at least keep his back dry, and glanced up at Hermann for the thirtieth time in the past ten minutes.

“Dude,” he said, one eyebrow creasing slightly, “are you sure you don’t just wanna come under here? The fur’s gonna reek once we get inside.”

Hermann pushed the hood of his parka further down, but Newt could practically _feel_ the eye roll behind it. “That may be, but I know for a fact that the moment your samples arrive, you’d turn into a ceaseless mass of flailing limbs, and I’d prefer not to be in their vicinity when it happens.”

“Your nose didn’t even break,” Newt grumbled, but the point (well, actually, multiple instances of said point) had been made. Probably for the better, actually, because as they wait for the cargo ship to finish pulling into the Shatterdome port, Newt’s been going over something that’s half-thought experiment, half-loosely cobbled together semblance of a plan: he needs to tell Hermann about The Thing.

The Thing, in all its messy, horrifying glory, is the messy and horrifying revelation Newt came to about three or so years ago, back during an all nighter they were both pulling right before an attack hit. Newt was hunched over his desk in a relatively accurate approximation of a grooming chimpanzee, shaking his cramped hand out to try and relieve the throbbing agony borne from taking down as many of his notes as possible in one sitting, when he heard footsteps draw closer and a shape move out of the corner of his eye. He gave his wrist a twist that emitted a loud crack, and looked up to see Hermann with one of the tea towels he kept by the kettle.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to Newt as if that in itself was an explanation. Newt gave him a confused look.

“I haven’t spilled anything yet.”

Hermann shook his head. “For your hand. I warmed it up; wrap it around whatever hurts, and the heat will relax the muscles.”

Newt looked down at the towel, then his hand, then back up at Hermann. “Waitー seriously? You’re not afraid I’m gonna… I dunno, get something on it?”

Hermann huffed. “If you do, then you’ll be hand-washing the bloody thing yourself. But wrap your hand up; not too tight, though.”

Newt took it from him, still a little unnerved at the randomness of the act, and wound the warm cloth around his palm and the base of his thumb. The heat took effect almost instantaneously, sending the pulsing aches that he had been trying to get rid of for nearly half an hour dissipating as he rubbed at the covered space. He looked up at Hermann and grinned. “Oh my God, that’s perfect; thanks, dude!”

The tips of Hermann’s ears went pink, and he ducked his head slightly. “Don’t mention it. If it cools off, heat up the kettle and tie it around the metal for a minute or two. I better not see a speck of Blue on it when I get it back.”

Newt didn’t stop smiling, the color that was now seeping down towards Hermann’s cheeks oddly captivating. He felt his chest do a series of funny little squeezes. “Yeah,” he said, voice ever-so-slightly fainter, “of course.”

Hermann cleared his throat and turned away, but before he could stop himself, Newt called out, “Wait!” 

Hermann raised a cautious eyebrow. “Yes?”

A lump suddenly appeared in Newt’s throat, and he forced it down. “Uh. Let me know too, if you need anything. It’s late.”

There was the smallest, unreadable twitch in Hermann’s expression, and without another word he nodded and returned to his desk. Newt cradled his wrapped hand and ran his fingers over the fabric of the towel, the fluttery feeling spreading down to his stomach. Butterflies? Were those actual fucking _butterflies_ he was getting? Because that could only meanー

With a start, Newt felt his breath catch as the last piece fell into place. Hermann had gone out of his way to help him, without expecting anything in return, and here he was feeling giddy like a teenager. With a crush. In reference to Hermann.

 _Oh_.

Oh _no_.

Thus, Newt’s extreme apprehension surrounding any and all iterations and effects of The Thing, which, ideally, would have been heartily ignored until it dissipated, as had all of Newt’s other doomed crushes, except for the fact that it didn’t. It didn’t at all. Every time Hermann so much as twirled his fork at the mess hall table, the metal flashing among those long, elegant fingers, Newt felt his abdominopelvic cavity turn into a rave club. It was seriously lame.

The scientist that he was, Newt had been forced to admit that this whole relentless attraction debacle wasn’t going to go away any time soon, which meant that the only way to deal with it was to confess to Hermann, get his heart curb-stomped on by a scathing rejection, and put the matter to rest with a nice cry into whatever substitute for ice cream was currently selling.

The matter had become even more pressing with last night’s revelation of a double event, which Newt outwardly didn’t believe for like, a second, but inwardly felt the gears of anxiety click into overdrive. A double event meant pretty much certain doom for the small fighting force of scrap metal that was the Jaeger program, which meant goodbye planet Earth, which meant goodbye Hermann. Meaning Newt would never be able to see him again. Meaning he would have to carry this fucking crush with him to the grave, and possibly become a ghost haunting post-Kaiju Earth due to unfinished business, and yeah okay maybe he was catastrophizing a little bit, but things were starting to get down to the goddamn wire. He needed to get rejected by Hermann before the world ended, and that due date was growing closer and closer by the hour.

A sort of plan had been working itself around in Newt’s mind as they both stood there on the landing deck, watching the rain pound heavily onto the tarmac, and he was debating the merits of getting it over with in a more mundane and casual setting (thus minimizing any chance for loud fallout and speeding the whole nightmare along), or catching Hermann in his quarters to keep it all private (the devil worked hard, but the Shatterdome rumor mill worked harder). It had to be like ripping a bandaid off: confession, rejection, and assurances that it meant nothing so they could go back to their old work formula, at least until the world ended. Easy peasy.

A fat raindrop splashed onto the toe of Newt’s boot, and he chanced a look up at Hermann. His hood had fallen back in the wind, and at this distance Newt could see tiny beads of water catching on his eyelashes. They were unfairly long. Newt’s whole life was unfair, actually.

He sucked in a deep breath, thought, _Fuck it, better now than never_ , and cleared his throat awkardly. “So, uh Hermann.”

Hermann appeared to startle out of his own thinking, and gave Newt a sidelong glance. “Yes?”

“I, uhーI’ve been sorta meaning to talk to you about something? Something kinda important.”

“Concerning?” he asked.

“Uh, wellー” Newt began, but a blast of the ship’s foghorn cut through the air, and several crew members began rolling a series of crates and tanks down the gangplank. Newt’s mind cleared of anything other than _Samples!!!_ , and he darted forward to get a closer look at the rain-splattered glass, yelling at the men to be careful as Hermann sighed and tucked his free hand into his pocket to walk alongside him. By the time the issue popped up again they were already in the elevator, and as Newt did what he considered to be his second-best Hermann impression of all time, he got the feeling this might not be the best place.

It’s fine. They’ve got time after the briefing with the Marshall. Nobody ever said anything bad about mixing business and not-pleasure.

* * *

“Hermann,” Newt said the moment he dropped his arms to his sides and began trailing after him, “c’mon, you have to see the value in at least exploring the option ofー”

“I don’t,” Hermann said tersely, continuing his way down the corridor without turning to look at him. “I think you’re being foolish, and rash, and this is yet another example of that mind of yours being entirely focused on the wrong line of experimentation.”

“Then what else do you expect me to do?” Newt exclaimed, throwing his hands back up in exasperation. “If you’re right about the double eventー”

“I _am_.”

“If you’re right!” he continued. “What are we gonna do about it? Just send more pilots in, expecting them to be able to fight two whole Kaiju at once? We can barely handle _one_ these days! Unless, of course, your idea is for a double team, which is even stupider considering the small amount of Jaegers we have left and the fact that we need to, y’know, save them for the even more dangerous Breach assault. So that just leaves us with either throwing Jaegers at them likeーlike fucking metal and human shields, which I know for a _fact_ would never be an option for anyone, least of all you, or you, actually, have no plan! Which again leaves us with no concrete way of surviving your hypothetical, unless you _actually fucking listen to me_ for once and just let me Drift with theー”

Hermann stopped abruptly, Newt just barely managing not to collide with his back, and spun around, eyes flashing. 

“If you think for even one moment, Newton, that I would willingly let you walk jugular first into what we both know is highly likely to be a bloody _suicide mission_ , then you’re an even bigger imbecile than I first thought.”

“What the hell does _your_ being okay with this have to do with it?!” Newt spat. “I don’t need your feelings to be a part of the equation here, Hermann, I need you to be a goddamn scientist and back me up to the Marshall. If we don’t figure out some way to be higher than, say, thirty-two percent sure this Breach assault is gonna work, we’re fucked, and the only way that’s gonna happen is word of mouth confirmation.”

“And what makes you so certain you can even get any information before your mind is destroyed?” Hermann said icily. “Or that you could find a way to convey said information before dying, or even remember what human language and communication is whilst your cerebral structure is being disintegrated by mind-melding with an alien one?” 

“Risks like that are what this entire resistance is built on right now,” Newt said, ignoring how the truth of Hermann’s words sent a chill straight into his gut. “Sometimes you just have to bank on your theories and take one.”

Hermann leaned in close, face flushed and angrier than Newt had ever seen him. His eyes were like tiny disks of cold steel. “If you honestly think,” he said in a low voice that shook ever-so-slightly, “that your life is worth some crackpot _theory_ with less scientific evidence to back it up than aliens at the pyramids, then you do not belong in a laboratory.” He took a step back, gaze unbroken. “You belong in a padded room.”

Unable to stop himself, Newt took a step back, his face tumbling into an expression as if he’d been slapped. Something cold and sick twisted in the pit of his stomach, and he was filled with the urge to dig his nails into the palms of his hands until they drew blood. Instead, he shoved them into his pockets and drew his shoulders into himself, then the rest of him up to his full height. If Hermann wanted to cut him down where it hurt, then _fine_. Newt had something that would have him begging him to hook himself up to that brain and fry his insides out.

“Oh, you think _that’s_ crazy?” he sneered. “Well then I’ve got something _really_ fucking pathetic.”

Newt expected him to bite back, to goad him into confessing himself, to maybe even leave outright. What he never even planned on was Hermann’s face going milk-pale, and his eyes widening to the size of coke bottle caps.

“Don’t,” he said softly, and Newt froze in his tracks, unable to reconcile this sudden fear with the fury he had faced just seconds before. He searched Hermann’s face for some kind of explanation, but there was only a wall of rapidly calculating panic, and then nothing he could discern behind that.

“Hermannーwhat?” he began, but Hermann made a sort of jerking motion and turned on his heel, striding away faster than Newt had ever seen him. He couldn’t even fathom what to say to all… _that_.

Newt watched him disappear down the hallway, still reeling, and balled his fists in his pockets. Whatever. If Hermann wanted to make it acutely aware he didn’t really care, then Newt would take that as all the encouragement he needed.

* * *

This was wrong, this was a mistake, this was a huge fucking mistake and Newt couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, his senses spinning and reeling as the headache inside his skull threatened to explode into a thousand tiny oozing stars that swirled around images of _them_ and machines and limbs upon limbs upon limbs, twisting together in a great connected hive of every creature every soul present upon that planet, and then pulled themselves into him until he tore them away, hands shaking, and they saw him _they saw him_ he was so scared and he was going to die and his heart was vibrating out of his chest and into his throat and across his tongue into the bud of a blossoming, horribly blue flower that burst into color across his vision, brain floating, eyes somewhere hazy, mylein sheaths twisting and unraveling around and around his cracking neurons that sparkled horribly because _he was going to die_ and his hands, his _hands_ , hisー

Something was holding his hand.

No. Someone. There was someone swimming through all those spirals, and they were holding his hand, and the skin was rough and dry and cool like chalkdust. He wondered if he might be dying. He realized that it might be Hermann.

Then there were more handsーnoー _arms_ around him, and a great weight being taken off his head, and long, trembling fingers moving through his hair and around his waist and a wet cheek being pressed against his equally damp one. He was so scared. Hermann was holding him. These two facts amplified each other in tandem.

Faced with the unavoidable possibility of his own shattered mind, and the certainly animalistic whimpers making their way out of his mouth in wriggling sound waves of color, Newt found that he could manage no other coherent speech than, “Hermann, Hermann, Hermann,” over and over like a prayer, a mantra, a plea that I love you, please don’t leave me, I don’t think I want you to say no.

He loved Hermann, and he didn’t want Hermann to hate him for that.

He tried to mumble something, a gasp of words in the desperation that his state would make the response kinder in some selfish way, but Hermann just shushed him and cradled his head tightly, the arm wound around him keeping a firm point of warmth just over his heart. 

The arms squeezed tighter, and there was nothing and then a hard surface under him, and cool glass in his hand, and Newt decided that if that erratic, panicked thumb rubbing over the feverish skin of his knuckles was the only thing keeping him grounded to this planet then, well, there were worse anchors to fall in love with.

* * *

“You’re not going,” said Hermann firmly. Newt rolled his eyes, rubbing the last of the dried blood from his upper lip. 

“And _you_ don’t get to decide that, bud, so either you wish me luck, or we part in uncertainty.” He shrugged and spread his arms. “Time to save the world, Herms.”

Hermann shook his head and gestured at Newt’s still-unsteady legs with his cane. “You’re in absolutely no state to go stumbling around Hong Kong when an attack will occur soon, pretending to make deals with a bloody mob boss like some sort of vertically challenged James Bond.”

“Fuck you, I’m average height,” Newt sniped, pointing two fingers at Hermann’s chest.

“For a leprechaun, perhaps, and that still doesn’t grant you the good sense to do this.” He strode forward and batted Newt’s hand away, fussing over the lapels of his leather jacket and mumbling under his breath. Newt felt his face flush at the sudden proximity, hands dropping to his sides as he tried to ignore the warm puffs of Hermann’s breath so close to his mouth.

“We don’t really have any other choice, dude,” he said quietly, the nerves building inside him, thrumming like a bassline. Hermann sighed.

“I know. I just wish I could force you to be more careful.”

Newt let out a soft chuckle. “Hey, you know me. I’m one for the quiet life.”

Hermann fitted the zipper of his jacket and pulled it up, then halfway down, then gave up and left it dangling back down at the bottom. Newt swallowed hard, his thoughts floating back to the rambling, terrifying mess of the Drift. He let his hand drift closer to the one near the zipper.

“Hermann,” he said tentatively, “listen. I need toーbefore I go, there’s something I have toー”

Hermann cut him off with a shake of his head. “Not now,” he said, and the look on his face was so unexpectedly sad that Newt’s heart ached for it. “Tell me when I see you again.”

Newt snorted. “If.”

“ _When_ ,” he insisted firmly. “Don’t you dare come back in a body bag. I’d never forgive you for it.”

A small, almost-wry smile crept unbidden onto Newt’s face. “Okay,” he said, half-joking. “Just for you then, sweetheart. Promise.”

He expected Hermann to scoff at the nickname; find it patronizing, but instead his gaze moved up to the bottom of Newt’s nose, and he sighed. Not even a moment later, Newt felt something warm and wet slide down towards his mouth. “Shitー” he hissed, bringing a finger up to try and stem the trickle, “fuck, goddamnitー”

“Here.” Hermann held his handkerchief out and brought Newt’s hand up to hold it in place, and Newt felt his cheeks go scarlet.

“Oh, no,” he said quickly, “you might need itー”

Hermann held his hand there firmly. “Keep it,” he said, and his fingers were heated over Newt’s own. “So you can bring it back to me.”

Newt curled them around the fabric and felt his breath catch, forcing his gaze down and away from Hermann’s own. He felt like he would burn if he looked too close, or do something even stupider, like kiss him. “Okay,” he said again, voice wobbling despite himself. “Promise.”

* * *

For Newton Geiszler, falling in love was like drowning in a rip current.

He never quite knew when the first idea of it happened; when the person started to become less of “just” a person, and more of a fixture in his life he found everything lesser without, but by the time the tug made itself apparent it was always too late. He was pulled out into those messy, crashing waters, sucked further and further towards them; his only chance for survival being to move among those feelings, parallel to the shore, until the current spit him out and he could return to his own life of nights in the lab turning to morning, and hands on his hips belonging to a name he couldn’t remember. It was turbulent, and spent half-without air, but experience had assured him that, for him, at least, there was no other way life could be. 

Falling in love with Hermann Gottlieb was like running from a thunderstorm, then realizing you had never been so thirsty in your entire life.

Newt _knew_ the precise, clinical moment when Hermann’s presence by his side had become more of a comfort than a warning, when those fights didn’t just drive him towards excellence with the goal of proving him wrong, but seeing that always dour, sharp face light up with excitement and pride over his latest discovery. When he had seen Hermann put his phone down heavier than usual, and instinctively knew to start brewing a cup of tea and fluff the pillows on the lab couch. When he had collapsed into peals of laughter one night, a bottle of sake passed between them, and hadn’t automatically lifted his hands to his mouth to cover the wide, ugly grin. 

He had found, in this strange, terrifying, _wonderful_ way, a home in a person; not just one he had never expected to even like, but a person who had seen him as he was and opened the door to let him inside.

When Hermann turned to him, mouth set in that thin, determined line he knew by heart, and declared that the only course of action was to Drift together, Newt felt his face shudder in surprise, but inside he thought, yeah. I knew I loved you, and I knew you made me feel less broken in a sense that my absent parts were made up for by you, but now I’m about to be in your head and you in mine and everything I thought, all the times I was giving too much to another person who didn’t want it; they _weren’t true_. Because you wouldn’t just do this for me, you want to do this right _alongside_ me. And if you see this in a few seconds, I need you to know that I’m not scared of the Kaiju, I’m not scared of what you do or don’t feel for me; I’m terrified of how much I love you, and how much that doesn’t really scare me at all.

But he didn’t say that; there’s not enough time, and when he opened his mouth to blurt out those words, he found himself holding out his hand instead, shaking with anxiety and trepidation and the force of holding himself back. And despite the stupid rush of bravado that came out of his mouth, Hermann took it, fingers fluttering over it nervously, and Newt thought he knew what the Greeks meant when they went out looking for who made their heart sing.

* * *

“I love you,” Newt said breathlessly, holding out Hermann’s handkerchief as he vomited into a toilet.

“I love you,” he said quietly, knowing he wouldn’t be heard over the scream of the helicopter blades.

“I love you,” he mumbled into Hermann’s shoulder, holding on tightly as the radars showed a small, glowing package shoot down the tunnel of the Breach, wondering how much time he had left to say it again, and again, and again.

* * *

The sound of the lab’s door sliding open with an arthritic creak rang differently in the charged air of the Shatterdome, shouts and cheers from LOCCENT still echoing all the way down the corridor. Newt put a hand on the frame to steady himself, then stepped inside, hands twitching in his pockets as he began to pace about the room.

Indecision and anxiety swirled in his stomach, pulsing in time with his footsteps as he tried to recalibrate his plan to an entirely new future rapidly spreading out before him. The Breach was closed. The War was won. They had time nowー _he_ had time; all the time in the world to do and say everything he thought he never would. There were months, years, even _decades_ worth of time left to tell Hermann how he feels; Newt could stall and prolong the pain he’d feel for as long as he wanted to.

And yet, with the threads of red mixing to purple in his mind already telling him of Hermann’s approaching footsteps, he found that the idea of him not knowing everything, of not being truly known and bare to this man, utterly inconceivable. Hermann had seen all of him. Newt wanted him to see this, too.

Not a moment after Hermann walked through the door, concern across his face, Newt turned to him, shaking, and said frankly, “You’re going to think I’m insane, but I’m actually more terrified than I’ve been in the past twelve years. Maybe even the past twelve hours, actually.”

Hermann stopped immediately, mouth parting slightly. “You… what? Newton, you left theーare you alright?”

“Not really,” Newt said, the pitch of his voice beginning to rise just slightly with hysteria. “No, noーactually, I’m really not, because you’ve been in my head, and I don’t know what you know, and I really need you to know this even if it’s the worst thing I’ve ever told you, and that’s saying something: I love you.”

He took a step forward, looking straight at the middle of Hermann’s forehead, unable to take in his expression. “I love you, and it’s not like anybody else I’ve ever loved in my life, which is, like, amazing? Because I didn’t know love could feel this way; like a good thing instead ofーof blind panic; like you’re _getting_ to give yourself away, because you get to take a whole new person back. Andーand I know we just Drifted, and soulmates and being incomplete is bullshit, but I did think about it whenーbeforehand, and I think it’s because of you that I finally figured out how it all works.

“It’s like, I’ve been looking for you every day of my entire life. And then I _did_ find you, and it was like myーmy heart jumped up and went ‘there, there!’. Andーand I was still looking, but this time for any way to make you stay.” He paused, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. “But I didn’t, did I? Because even when I was an asshole, even when I showed you just how messed up and weird and trying really hard to get better I actually am… you just stayed. Because those parts of me were reasons just as much as the good stuff. And I need you to know that every time I look at you, it’s like the sun’s coming out, and that my brain is so, _so_ loud but you always make it quiet, and that making you laugh makes me feel like I just won every Nobel prize there is to win, and that it was never just about saving the world, Hermann; it was saving the place where I got to be with _you_.”

Newt summoned his courage and finally looked Hermann straight in the eyes. “I wanted to tell you before the world ended, but now it’s not going to, so: I love you. And even if you don’t feel the same way, I don’t want to start a future where you don’t at least know that.”

Hermann’s mouth now gaped open like a fish, his cheeks two vivid patches of color. He made a kind of choking noise, and it sounded as if he were about to throw up again, before he finally managed, “I almost died without you telling me this… on _purpose_.”

“What,” Newt said flatly.

Hermann fumbled thin air with his hands, twisting them together. “IーI thought, at that moment back in the hallway, you were going to tell me that you knew how I felt about you, so you could reject me and make fun of me andーand I don’t know, do something awful because we were terrified and the world was about to end, butーwell, then I thought you just wanted the closure, and I just couldn’t die with you thinking that about me, so I kept trying to keep you from confronting me, butー” He looked as if he were witnessing the second coming. “You were trying to confess to _me_ the entire time.”

“What?!” Newt shrieked.

“I’m a bloody idiot,” Hermann said, and then his hand was on Newt’s cheek, and his mouth on his, and _that_ , that right there was when the rest of Newt’s life started.

Hermann was not the ocean. He was not even, in fact, a thunderstorm. In Newt’s mind, with those hands holding his cheek, his neck, the side of his waist, gripping his hip tightly; lips gently moving over his own; warm, slender, solid pulse of a body pressed up against his; Hermann was the river Jordan, and Newt was coming to Jesus. 

“You’re so stupid,” he said dazedly, pulling away for just a moment, “and a dick, and I love you; you know that, right?”

“You only tried to tell me at least ten times,” Hermann said, running the pad of his thumb over Newt’s cheekbone, his eyes dark and a little misty.. “And I feel I owe you that in kind.”

“Keep talking,” Newt said, but felt he could wait just a little longer (they had years, and years, and the rest of their lives now; how truly fucking incredible was that?), so he could kiss Hermann again, and again, and again.


End file.
